Instant activity to closure, with the cues

PE Lesson Plan Template

A physical education plan with the structure PE teachers are trained on: a SHAPE America 2024 standard, psychomotor, cognitive and affective objectives, equipment with counts and a safety box, then instant activity, two skill-development tasks, a culminating game and closure, each with minutes and the cues you will call. Easier and harder modifications and the MVPA minutes at the foot.

Equipment, safety, cues, tasks

PE lesson plan template

Portrait physical education plan with a standards box, three objective boxes, equipment and safety boxes, a five-row task table with minutes and cues columns, and easier-harder and assessment boxes

Word Google Docs

PE Lesson Plan — Word & Google Docs

SHAPE America 2024 standard, three domain objectives, equipment with counts and safety, then instant activity through closure with minutes and a cues column.

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PDF

PE Lesson Plan — fillable PDF

One page, portrait. Type into the fields or print it blank and handwrite.

Download fillable PDF

Specifications: US Letter, 8.5 × 11 inches. Word files are editable .docx that open in Word 2007 through Microsoft 365, including Word for Mac; the Google Docs link makes a copy in your own Drive; the PDF has real form fields and prints as plain hairline boxes when blank. Free to use in as many classes as you like, no account, no watermark.

Why it is laid out this way

About the pe template

PE plans fail in the gym when the plan was written for a classroom. The things a PE teacher needs on the page are physical: how many balls and cones, where the groups stand, what happens if a child falls, and the three-word cues for each task. This sheet gives each of those a place and runs the lesson in the sequence physical educators use — instant activity so no one stands still while attendance is taken, skill development with a progression, a culminating game that uses the skill, and a closure that names what was learned.

The standards box is for SHAPE America's 2024 National Physical Education Standards, which replaced the 2013 set and reduced five standards to four; any plan still citing standard five is out of date. The objectives are split into the three learning domains because PE is the one subject that assesses all three every lesson, and the MVPA line is there because many states and districts now ask teachers to show moderate-to-vigorous activity minutes.

Questions teachers ask

PE lesson plans, answered

What changed in the 2024 SHAPE standards?

Five standards became four: motor skills; knowledge of movement and fitness concepts; social skills through movement; and personal skills, benefits of movement and choosing to be active. Grade-level outcomes were rewritten as well. If your district form still lists five, it predates the revision; this sheet uses the current four.

What are cues?

The two- or three-word teaching points you say while students practice — step, swing, follow through — that distill a skill into what a child can hold in mind. Writing them per task is the most reliable way to give consistent feedback across five classes a day.

Is there a weekly PE plan?

Not as a separate sheet; the weekly periods grid in this section works for a PE schedule with the period rows renamed to classes. Most PE teachers run one lesson plan across many classes and track where each class got to in the notes line.